MADRID, Dec 22 2022 (IPS)* – Day after day, international humanitarian organisations launch desperate appeals for funding to continue saving some of the many lives at high risk. When they get a handful of dollars –even just one million– from a rich country, they welcome it as manna from heaven.
Sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest companies in the industry reached 592 billion US dollars in 2021, a 1.9% increase compared with 2020 in real terms. Credit: Shutterstock
Not only the available funding for humanitarian aid is already short, but next year will also set another record for humanitarian relief requirements, with 339 million people in need of assistance in 69 countries, an increase of 65 million people compared to the same time last year, the United Nations and partner organisations on 1 December 2022 said.
“The estimated cost of the humanitarian response going into 2023 is US$51.5 billion, a 25% increase compared to the beginning of 2022.”
On December 11, 2022, the New York Times broke a front-page story about “J.R.O.T.C,” the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, described as “a program funded by the U.S. military designed to teach leadership skills, discipline, and civil values – and to open students’ eyes to the idea of a military career.” The well-researched Times article has the air of a dramatic expose, although the facts it presents have been known for years.
Richard E. Rubenstein
This Pentagon program, now enrolling more than half a million “cadets” in some 3,500 high schools across the United States, was founded during World War I and has greatly expanded since the 1970s.
It is no coincidence that this expansion took place simultaneously with the development of the “all-volunteer” armed forces introduced by President Richard Nixon at the end of the Vietnam War.
The use of conscription to raise forces for that war not only generated a massive antiwar movement among youth at risk of being drafted, it also produced a dissension-ridden, unreliable U.S. Army.
By 1973, ending the draft seemed to American rulers little more than common sense. But how, then, to ensure that young people willing to risk their lives in imperial adventures would volunteer in numbers sufficient to maintain the largest, most far-flung military establishment in human history?
(UN News)* — Demonising victims of trafficking and modern slavery, turns the public against them and legal methods for keeping them safe, leaving them vulnerable to extremist attacks, independent UN human rights experts on warned, urging the United Kingdom to step up its efforts to protect survivors.
UN News/Omar Musni | The Palace of Westminster and central London, as seen from across the River Thames.
The credibility of victims of trafficking and contemporary forms of slavery – including migrants and nationals – is now under attack in the UK, the Human Rights Council-appointed experts warned, in a statement published on Monday.
‘Unsubstantiated claims’
“We are alarmed by the rise in unsubstantiated claims by public officials and Government departments regarding persons seeking protection under the Modern Slavery Act and the National Referral Mechanism in the past days and weeks,” they said.
MADRID, Dec 19 2022 (IPS)* – When tens of thousands of Europeans had to flee the horrors of two born-in-Europe devastating armed conflicts that attracted other powers: the World Wars I and II, they migrated to the Americas and other Western countries in search of safe haven.
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“There is no migration crisis; there is a crisis of solidarity” says UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. Credit: Credit: UNOHCR
Upon their arrival at their destination, they were checked at the border and admitted to enter as useful workforce.
Seldom, if ever, anybody classified them as “illegal” migrants. Those human beings were fleeing the horrors of those wars.
(UN News)*— From Arctic communities desiring to receive public services in their own languages, to the Arhuaco people in Colombia who still speak Ika, indigenous people across the world are determined to keep their mother tongues alive.
UNODC/Laura Rodriguez Navarro | Girls from the Arhuacos indigenous community of Colombia.
The Organization has long advocated for indigenous peoples, who are the inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment.
(UN News)* — Climate change has driven an “unprecedented” number of larger and more deadly cholera outbreaks around the world this year, the UN health agency, WHO, said on Friday [].
“The map is under threat (from cholera) everywhere,” said Dr. Philippe Barboza, from the World Health Organization, speaking in Geneva, via Zoom.
Available data points to cases of infection in around 30 countries, whereas in the previous five years, fewer than 20 countries reported infections, on average.
Humanity faces unprecedented engineering challenges if it is to survive. Solutions to these challenges are waiting to be discovered in plants, animals, and microbes, but these could be lost forever, if we do not preserve the rich diversity of life on Earth.
UNDP: Nature has inspired a wide range of engineering solutions
The UN biodiversity conference, COP15, is due to wrap up on 19 December. This weekend, we are looking at some of the ways that humanity is reliant on biodiversity for a healthy and thriving global ecosystem.
When a species goes extinct, it takes with it all of the physical, chemical, biological, and behavioural attributes that have been selected for that species, after having been tested and re-tested in countless evolutionary experiments over many thousands, and perhaps millions, of years of evolution.
MADRID, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)* – The external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023.
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About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of debt distress or already in distress. Credit: Pixabay.
Moreover, the debt-service payments, projected to top 62 billion US dollars in 2022, put the biggest squeeze on poor countries since 2000, according to the World Bank.
As defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), debt service refers to payments in respect of both principal and interest.
ROME, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)*– One of the knock-on effects of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is that European countries have embarked on a ‘dash for gas’ to find alternatives to Russian energy supplies.
Don’t Gas Africa protest during COP27. Credit: Don’t Gas Africa
A flurry of deals has ensued with several African States being enticed by the prospect of lucrative energy contracts.
A new report, however, has warned that helping Europe continue its addiction to imported fossil fuels risks having devastating long-term effects for African societies.
(UN News)* — Amid rising humanitarian needs worldwide, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, on Tuesday [13 December 2022] launched a $1.2 billion appeal to support 66 million women, girls and young people in 65 countries affected by crisis.
The 2023 Humanitarian Action Overview is UNFPA’s largest appeal ever and includes $289 million in Afghanistan, $70 million in Ukraine, $62 million in Somalia, and $23 million in Haiti.
As the world faces multiple, intersecting crises, the agency calls for predictable and flexible humanitarian funding to save lives and ensure that the rights and needs of women and girls are protected and fulfilled.
The past year has seen a shocking increase in needs globally, with the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide surpassing 100 million for the first time in history.
.jpg/image1170x530cropped.jpg "Girls from the Arhuacos indigenous community of Colombia.")
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 